[SOLVED] Guidance in buying a RAID card

[echolane]

I have a custom built computer with Windows 10 Pro installed in a Core i7 processor.
I have owned a RAID card for many years passing it on with each new computer build. Unfortunately, I entrusted my computer to a local repair shop and when I opened it up some time later, I discovered my RAID card was not inside. Stolen! Or taken out for troubleshooting and not put back? Either way, it’s GONE and it’s been years since I bought one, so I could use some guidance.

I’ve discovered prices ranging from $20 to many hundreds of dollars. I understand there’s something called “fake” RAID, apparently meaning its software driven instead of hardware driven. I’m not sure how important that is.
To the point, I just want a simple mirror for two hard drives. Western Digital RED. This is for a personal computer, not a business computer. The most important files are things like Quicken, Music, Photos, Word documents, Mail.
Would greatly appreciate any guidance so I can make a good purchase.
I will add that RAID has twice rescued me when one drive went bad.

Also, although my motherboard has RAID capability, I would prefer a card. If I have to build a new computer the card is portable and will transfer leaving my data intact. OTOH, a RAID controller on a motherboard is not portable and not transferable and there would be no way to retrieve the RAID data in event of a motherboard failure.

 

[USAFRet]

A true backup routine is much safer than a RAID 1.

 

[popatim]

M1015 is my go to for budget raid card. It's great for raid 0, 1, 10. Sucks at raid 5.

Also, although my motherboard has RAID capability, I would prefer a card. If I have to build a new computer the card is portable and will transfer leaving my data intact. OTOH, a RAID controller on a motherboard is not portable and not transferable and there would be no way to retrieve the RAID data in event of a motherboard failure.

Two things wrong with this statement.
1: You have the same issue with your controller card going bad.
2: data is retrievable (even for data on raid controller cards) but not as easily as with single drive attached to motherbd sata ports.


You are probably better off with frequent backups to an external device. Raid 1 might protect you from a drive failure but it will do nothing for you if you get one of the encryption viruses, accidental or virus based file deletion, electrical spikes making to the drives and toasting the hdd board, your dwelling burning down... We typically suggest planning for the worst by having both onsite & offsite backup solutions.

 

[falcon291]

Please check your maianboard's manual. I used mainboard's RAID, for years, in RAID 0 configuration. And I never faced any problem.

And by the way, I transferred the RAID disks from one computer to another several times, and data was always intact.

 

[mdd1963]

RAID 0 doubles chances of data loss...(slightest glitch, and,.....<best Southpark banking investor counselor voice"...."Aaaand, it's gone!)

Investigate RAID 1, but, a complete backup image periodically stored to an normally offline external HDD or SSD is advisable, making the RAID 1 essentially a waste of money

 

[falcon291]

RAID 0 doubles chances of data loss...(slightest glitch, and,.....<best Southpark banking investor counselor voice"...."Aaaand, it's gone!)

Investigate RAID 1, but, a complete backup image periodically stored to an normally offline external HDD or SSD is advisable, making the RAID 1 essentially a waste of money

For my case, I used the configuration with high quality WD Black drives, starting way before SSD era. It was not doubling the speed, but I had at least 50 percent speed gain. And all I would lose were some movies and Steam and Origin games, these can be downloaded anyway.
I no longer use any sort of RAID, as NVMe SSD is fast enough.

RAID of course does not take away the need of periodical backups, but if he is looking for 7x24 availability, it is a not only good, but only possible solution.

 

[USAFRet]

RAID of course does not take away the need of periodical backups, but if he is looking for 7x24 availability, it is a not only good, but only possible solution.

And thats all a RAID 1 gives. Uptime.
Any reputable use of a RAID 1 needs a good backup.

And if you don't truly need the 24/7 uptime...the RAID 1 isn't needed.

 

[Paperdoc]

I fully agree with the posts above. RAID1 is what you are talking about, and its real value is: no downtime. I use it in a retail store point-of-sale application where we cannot tolerate a shut-down during the day if a drive fails, but can recover and repair after store closing. It is a poor "auto-backup" scheme.

However, IF you insist that you want to use it as your backup system, you can avoid one of your worries. Your concern with using mobo based RAID1 is that, if the mobo fails, you may not be able to access the pair of drives using a different mobo that has a different RAID system built in. Your solution is the classic one: use a third-party card, and rely on the possibility that you can get a replacement card that DOES have the same RAID system. Right now you are facing a possible failure of relying on that.

When I first installed my store RAID1 system, I noted that at least one mobo chip maker (in my case, NVIDIA) said they guaranteed that all of their future mobo RAID chips would always be able to access a RAID array created with their then-current chips. So I bought a mobo that used that maker's chips. Some years later that mobo failed for other reasons, and I bought a replacement unit that used the same maker's chips for the HDD system. I installed the new mobo, re-connected the old drive pair in the appropriate SATA sockets (drive #1 to SATA1, etc.) and it booted and ran perfectly with no issues, as promised. So you can look for that same feature of your mobo and the HDD control chips it uses to provide the mobo-based RAID feature. If you have that, then you can use the feature and stop hunting for a third-party RAID card.

HOWEVER, you MAY have another issue. I don't know what repairs the shop did on your machine. One obvious one, since your unit no longer has its old RAID card, is that they have changed the RAID system or even removed the RAID feature. They MIGHT have changed it to use a mobo-based RAID1 system that is still using your original pair of drives, and doing so successfully. In that case, you may want to do nothing further. BUT if they removed the RAID1 feature so that your system now uses a "regular" HDD system with no RAID, then installing a RAID1 feature to that can have a significant issue. This is especially so if you BOOT from the RAID1 array. To BOOT from a RAID1 array requires that Windows must FIRST load the RAID1 drivers from that HDD units before it can read them and boot up. This means that the Windows installation must be set up that way, AND that the drivers be installed properly on the HDD's in just the right place for early access. Normally this is all set up by the Windows Install process at the time that Windows is first installed on the system. Right now, there is an open question whether or not that old system still exists on your drives, or was removed in the repair process. You would have to get that info from the repair shop.

 

[falcon291]

As I wrote, I used the same RAID disks, in 3 generations of Asus mainboards: Asus P5Q, Asus P9X79 Pro and Asus Z390-F, spanning 14 years. It is Intel Rapid Storage technology, it is not Asus or Gigabyte or MSI's technology, so I don't know how it will work or not work with AMD mainboards, but we are at the safe side with all Intel mainboards. RAID cards may have some advantages in speed, but otherwise if you don't change the platform to AMD. I don't think you will face a compatibility issue with an Intel based mainboard.

By the way, booting and setting up Windows from a RAID drive was a problem with my Asus P5Q and Windows XP at the time. Starting with P9X79 Pro and Windows 7, it is no longer a problem.

 

[RealBeast]

For booting and running the OS, the Adaptec 39160 worked great in XP with 4 18GB 15K Cheetahs in RAID 0, and then along came the 80GB Intel X-25M that just crushed its random performance for about the same price as the whole array set up.